I'm starting to think the "Dawn" in "Dawnguard" might more likely be related generally to the Dawn Era (and more specifically to the secrets of power and artifacts associated with it - possibly things like the Eye of Magnus.) Between the Falmer/Snow-prince, the Thalmor, and some of the quest lines of Skyrim I think there's good reason to beleive it may refer to the Dawn Era and the artifice and mysticism associated with Magnus and/or Lorkhan.

The Thalmor claim to have rediscovered magicks from the Dawn Era (they credit their accomplishments in that area with ending the Void Nights - though their detractors allege their experiments may very well have caused it in the first place.) The Snow Prince was said to have weilded a spear and donned armor which used/were made with mysterious and previously unheard of magics (maybe Dawn Magic or Dwemer Tonal Architecture - which sounds like it gets pretty close to godly stuff by the time they're fiddling with the Heart of Lorkhan.) There's also

Spoiler –Has to do with mage guild quests

The Eye of Magnus is apparently quite powerful and the writing on it is outside at least most known languages (according to the muttering of Tolfdir who surmised it was not Falmer, Dwemer, Ayleid or even Daedric). It was also potentially the object whose original discovery by the Nords prompted a Falmer massacre of one of the larger Nord cities at the time. According to the more Nord-friendly version of history, this prompted a war where each side was bent on the utter annihilation of the other. The last major battle of that war is the one in which The Snow Prince was slain and subsequently entombed in a Barrow on Soltheseim along with his powerful artifacts (intact rather than put to the pyre as his fallen comrades were.)

It's harder to speculate what Dawnguard specifically might be (an organization, a fortress, or wibble). Yeah maybe it's somehow related to Dawnstar possibly instead of the dawn-era, the machinations of the Thalmor, dawn-magics, etc. That's probably just as likely, but I don't find that alone to be nearly as interesting as the prospect of them dealing with a subject that touches on the machinations of the Thalmor, the aims of the Psijiic Order, and a kind of power whose implications may have sparked the war that eventually lead the Falmer to their current sad state.

Originally Posted by joxer
DLC, eh?
Nice.
No words about a patch that will address those 500 bugs fan patch didn't fix?

Go get the Unofficial Patch. It fixes far more than Bethesda would ever have time to fix.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Xbox exclusives really shows you what Microsoft thinks about pc gaming.

Why are you taking this personally? It's just business. Microsoft can get more money from convincing PS3 owners to buy an XBox. If there were a Windows exclusive, what would that get them? Most people already own Windows. They might get people to buy better hardware but that doesn't help Microsoft at all.

If you want to convince somebody to get a PC exclusive, try and get NVIDIA and ATI/AMD to team up and pay for one. They would be the ones that might actually stand to gain from a deal like that. (It could be a bit tricky, though, with them making video technology for the consoles as well.)

Heck, at this point I'm surprised the PC is being thought of at all by the major rpg developers, wouldn't be surprised to see them forgo a pc version completely in the future. Speaking as a PC gamer its all about the thriving indie scene for rpgs at the moment, at least that is where all my interest lies for my next rpgs. An updated version of Baldur's Gate, Grim Dawn, Wasteland 2, Eschalon Book 3 etc, its an exciting time.

Originally Posted by Zloth
Go get the Unofficial Patch. It fixes far more than Bethesda would ever have time to fix.

Why are you taking this personally? It's just business. Microsoft can get more money from convincing PS3 owners to buy an XBox. If there were a Windows exclusive, what would that get them? Most people already own Windows. They might get people to buy better hardware but that doesn't help Microsoft at all.

If you want to convince somebody to get a PC exclusive, try and get NVIDIA and ATI/AMD to team up and pay for one. They would be the ones that might actually stand to gain from a deal like that. (It could be a bit tricky, though, with them making video technology for the consoles as well.)

I don't take it personally at all. Not sure where you got that from. I'm also fully aware of why microsoft would do it.

The problem is there is no competition for microsoft in the os market. Microsoft has zero incentive to make gaming any better on windows as they would much rather have an xbox game sell than a pc game.

I don't want more pc exclusives either. Exclusives are bad for the consumer, someone is always excluded.

Arkadia7: Why would they give up the second highest sales of the 3 platforms. I have been keeping track of game sales and usually the PC outperforms the PS3 in sales on multiplatform titles. The sales don't even count digital downloads and doesn't usually take into account outside of of a couple months after the release which the PC usually does better in then other platforms. Skyrim doesn't show that high of sales for the PC which is probably because of the requirement of Steamworks which would drive more sales then normal towards Steam.

Some users at the Bethesda forum discovered that the data files in the latest patch contained some content tagged as DLC01. Specifically, animations labelled "crossbow", "snow elf prince", new vampire feeding animations, and something unknown called "RF".

Is Bethesda the type to intentionally put red herrings in their data files to confuse us? I'm not sure. If it's true, I'm pleased that it indicates the DLC will have crossbows.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
Heck, at this point I'm surprised the PC is being thought of at all by the major rpg developers, wouldn't be surprised to see them forgo a pc version completely in the future.

Could have something to do with the PC version of Skyrim selling "several million copies" according to Bethesda. Maybe that's not enough to support it in your opinion…

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
Heck, at this point I'm surprised the PC is being thought of at all by the major rpg developers, wouldn't be surprised to see them forgo a pc version completely in the future. Speaking as a PC gamer its all about the thriving indie scene for rpgs at the moment, at least that is where all my interest lies for my next rpgs. An updated version of Baldur's Gate, Grim Dawn, Wasteland 2, Eschalon Book 3 etc, its an exciting time.

Originally Posted by TheSisko
Could have something to do with the PC version of Skyrim selling "several million copies" according to Bethesda. Maybe that's not enough to support it in your opinion…

Ask Crytek about there bitching about piracy when both there games on the pc have sold 3 million. Developers and publishers suffer from the syndrome known as more. Not every game will be the holy grail that COD is apparently. That series make billions.

Still it's just the usual Microsoft being dicks and paying publishers millions for early access to dlc first that's all. Nothing new.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
meanwhile Sony is making huge losses and is in serious danger of going under…… if that happens… what a huge win for MS that would be.

Hopefully they don't then there would be no competition for Microsoft unless you count Nintendo. Sony is losing money due to there high priced electronics not selling. You also have to consider there various poor decisions this generation.

That reminds me of angry mob not supporting high tier of business that was developed for diablo III, trough I am glad that here does not apply even if one practice evolve to another and I am sure in the future will be made an exception.

Aside so far not enough information to convince that is good dlc and worth to be waited.